Yosemite Ranger Notes

About This Blog

Ranger-naturalists have been interpreting the natural and cultural resources of Yosemite for park visitors for nearly a century. In this blog, some of Yosemite's park rangers share recent observations from around Yosemite.

All posts are shown below, or you can view posts by topic.

Remember Winter?

September 27, 2013 Posted by: MS - Park Ranger (Yosemite Valley)

The first taste of winter visited Yosemite’s high country on the last day of summer, bringing 6-10 inches of snow to the upper elevations of the park.  I had the good fortune to be camped at Young Lakes, north of Tuolumne Meadows, for the flurry.

 

Run With a Ranger on the Wawona Meadow Loop

August 04, 2013 Posted by: SS - Park Ranger (Wawona)

As I lace up my running shoes, the early morning air is crisp and clean with an aroma of pine and wet grass; it is the beginning of my day unfolding.  The Wawona Meadow Loop is a 3.5-mile dirt road that encompasses one of few lower montane Sierra Nevada meadows: terrain gently rolling through ponderosa pine, incense-cedar, and California black oak woodland.  Mountain dogwoods tightly crowd and overhang the path along one section I have dubbed “Dogwood Alley.” The dramatic blossoms in spring and the peach and rose-hued leaves in autumn lure me back to run this particular scenic loop regularly.  Even in winter, the thin snow crunches underfoot and utter silence offers a cold meditative run for me in the low angle light of solstice.

 

Wawona - Try It

August 03, 2013 Posted by: JJ - Park Ranger (Wawona)

The early morning sun in Wawona tells me there’s something very special about this place. Hearing the flow of the South Fork of the Merced River is calming, smoothing, and refreshing. Sitting quietly in the Wawona Meadow and closing my eyes creates another dimension of Wawona. Wawona, Yosemite's Sleepy Hollow, is like no other place in the Sierra.

 

Our inner 6-year old

March 09, 2013 Posted by: BW - Volunteer Interpreter

We were all young once. You may not remember it well now, but we often possess an innocence and honesty in our youth that is uncommon as adults. Such is the case of Evie, a young junior ranger, who recently returned a couple of sticks she took from the park saying in an adorable letter, “I know I’m not supposed to take things from the park…..Please put them back in nature.”

 

Ode to the Lyell Glacier

February 15, 2013 Posted by: BW - Volunteer Interpreter

The news last week that the park’s largest glacier has stagnated brings the effects of climate change in Yosemite to the forefront of our thoughts.

 

Last updated: March 27, 2021

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